Detroit’s ‘Hockeytown’ legacy attracts talent, expansion and the 2026 draft for the PWHL

The Professional Women’s Hockey League is coming to Detroit with both an expansion team and the 2026 draft, which will be hosted in downtown Detroit on Wednesday night.

With ten players signed to the still-unnamed team prior to the draft, excitement over the city of Detroit — dubbed “Hockeytown” in the 1990s by the city’s NHL team — and the state of Michigan has been evident from team leadership, league executives and the players themselves.

“I’ve been in that building a bunch of times, Little Caesars Arena, and I’ve seen how passionate the fans are,” Jesse Compher, a forward who signed with Detroit’s PWHL team during the expansion process, said during a virtual press conference. “You can see how passionate the fans are. They want a playoff team, and I think that here in the PWHL, we’re going to be able to bring that to them with our signings and what we’re building.”

Detroit was named as the first of four expansion teams in early May, the ninth of 12 teams in the league, which will enter its fourth season in the fall. It was announced the same day that the city would host the 2026 draft for the league as well, with the historic Fox Theatre as its venue. 

Detroit’s case for expansion

Ryan Gustafson, the CEO of Ilitch Sports and Entertainment, which owns both the Red Wings and Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers as well as Little Caesars Arena itself, said that bringing a PWHL team to the city fulfills the vision of the organization to create a world-class sports and entertainment district in downtown Detroit — and that included women’s sports.

“You listen to your fans, and you’re generally gonna have the right answer,” Gustafson said. “They were really clear with us that Detroit not only wanted a team, but deserved a team, and that they would put the full weight of the amazing fandom of Detroiters behind it, and Michiganders in general.”

Compher’s brother JT plays for the Detroit Red Wings in the NHL, and she said that knowing how the fans bring excitement to the other teams in the city made her even more excited to come play in Detroit. 

“They just support their sports team so much,” she said. “It’s such a sports city, and I think that they’re going to do such a great job supporting us.”

Detroit hosted three games in the PWHL’s “Takeover Tour,” a series of games in cities across the United States and Canada — one in early 2025 and two in early 2026 — and one of those, a matchup between the Montréal Victoire and the New York Sirens in March, had the second-highest attendance of any U.S. Takeover Tour game that season. 

At those games, fans holding signs declaring that Detroit should be among the cities in the next round of expansion were in every corner of Little Caesars Arena — and that devotion made it easy to convince officials that Detroit was the right place to grow the league, Gustafson said. 

Jayna Hefford, the PWHL’s executive vice president of hockey operations, seemed to agree.

“We look at the grassroots, we look at how many people are playing the game, following the game, fans of the game,” she said at a press conference prior to Wednesday’s draft. “We had a chance to play here, as all of you know, multiple times. So the last few years … the fans have continued to show up and show why they deserve a team here.”

Players also expressed their excitement about the fans’ enthusiasm for a team — at a virtual press conference, forward Britta Curl-Salemme said, “I think the passion of the city itself, they don’t call it Hockeytown for nothing. So I know there’s gonna be a ton of people really excited for this, this new team, and they’re gonna show up for us, and we’re just gonna give them our best product.”

And the hype around Detroit as a city has brought in significant star power — in addition to the players initially signed during the expansion process, Hilary Knight, the captain of the 2026 Olympic Women’s Hockey team that brought home a gold medal, will be joining the team as a trade deal that became official on Tuesday morning. 

It was widely reported that Knight, who is one of the most decorated American women’s hockey players, specifically wanted to play in Detroit — a fact that fans online have celebrated as a sign of broader excitement around the city in general.

Two of the players signed to the team in expansion are also Michiganders — Taylor Girard was born in Macomb Township, and Shiann Darkangelo is from Royal Oak.

Draft brings spotlight to city

But support for women’s hockey in Michigan surrounding the team and the draft is not limited there. Three other Michiganders in the league — Megan Keller, from Plymouth, Elle Hartje, from Detroit, and Clara Van Wieren, from Okemos — are also hosting a mentorship program for 100 high school girls’ hockey players in the area on Wednesday prior to the draft. 

Hosting the draft in Detroit also means that any player drafted to the team will have had a chance to visit the city even before they join the roster. 

“It is exciting to not only be an expansion team and being part of building something from scratch and really bring the city together behind this team,” said Manon Rhéaume, the general manager for the new team, “but we also get to host the draft was even more special because all the players that we’re going to be drafting, they’ll have a chance to be in the city where they’re going to be playing, and I think that’s going to be very special for them, so we’re really looking forward to that next step, and getting closer to have a complete team.”

City and county leaders were also key to supporting the expansion of the league into Detroit, and Gustafson called them “incredible partners.” 

“Detroit is home to incredibly passionate hockey fans who already have shown their enthusiasm and support for the PWHL here at Little Caesars Arena,” Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield said when the team was first announced. “I have no doubt that Detroit will prove to be a premier PWHL market.” 

The PWHL is not the only women’s sports league coming to Detroit in coming years — in 2029, the WNBA will expand into Detroit, part of a broader expansion in that league since 2024. 

“Today marks the long-hoped-for return of the WNBA to a city with deep basketball roots and a championship tradition,” Detroit Pistons Owner and Platinum Equity Chairman Tom Gores, who will also be an owner of the WNBA franchise, said in a press release when that team was announced. “Detroit played a key role in the league’s early growth, and we’re proud to reignite that legacy as the WNBA ascends to new heights. Our plans will bring new energy, investment and infrastructure to our city and the WNBA, and additional resources to our community.”

With both the PWHL team and the WNBA team calling Little Caesars Arena their home, Detroit will be the only city with the same home venue for the PWHL, NHL, WNBA and NBA — in many cities, the women’s teams play in venues with a smaller capacity than their men’s sports counterparts. 

That equity was important for both the league executives and the group pushing to bring the league to Detroit.

“We never really even thought twice about it, just because this fulfills our vision to amaze, inspire, and unite within this community, but it also really supports the growth of women’s sports and shows how important it is to our organization to facilitate and to amplify the growth,” Gustafson said. “It is definitely a challenge. We’re going to be a very busy arena, but it’s one that we’re all embracing in a really exciting way.”

Hefford said that infrastructure for both games and practices was a major factor in evaluating expansion markets. 

“For us to be able to be in a building like this, game venue, practice venue, gym, lounge, all of those things that are part of being a professional athlete. This was natural,” she told reporters. “We want to work with great partners. We have a chance to work here with the Ilitch Group, and they’ve been incredible partners to date. That’s important for us.”

The league is still growing, as Amy Scheer, the PWHL’s executive vice president of business operations, emphasized, and she expressed excitement about business partnership opportunities in the Detroit area.

“As Billie Jean King reminds us every day, our journey is just getting started. So a lot of work ahead, but proud of where we are and getting ready to get four new expansion teams up and running,” she added, quoting from the tennis icon who is one of the league’s founders.